Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes

  The next time I visited Sacred Heart we couldn’t talk because her dad was there. It was as if he was stalking us. After that we went outside, but he followed us to the landing at the top of the stairs where he could watch, and Sarah Byrnes couldn’t talk. Finally, I took her hand. “Once for yes and twice for no. Do you think he knows you’re faking it?”

  She squeezed three times.

  “Three? Oh, ‘I don’t know.’ You want three to be ‘I don’t know.’”

  Once.

  “You’re not going home with him, are you?”

  Twice. Hard.

  “Good. You want me to try to get you some help?”

  Twice. Hard again.

  “Wait,” I said, “hear me out. What if I could work it out so you were protected? I’m not sure, and if I can’t I won’t do anything, but if I could, would it be okay?”

  Twice.

  Sarah Byrnes didn’t trust anyone. She’d been “helped” before. Still, I didn’t believe I could just let her dangle in the wind like this. I also knew if I betrayed her, it would be the last time.

  “Look,” I said. “I’m going to sneak my notebook and a pen into your room, under your mattress. You tell me what to do, or at least tell me what you’re going to do. You must have a plan. It’s making me crazy to be in the dark. Okay? If I leave it, will you write in it?”

  Once.

  Mr. Byrnes said, “Any luck, boy?” as we passed him on the back stair, Sarah Byrnes staring straight ahead.

  “No sir. I talk because they said to keep things as normal as possible, but she doesn’t answer.”

  “This is bullshit,” he said, looking past me to Sarah Byrnes. “She’s hearing every word, and I’d bet you know that, Calhoune. Tell you what, if I find out it’s true, there’ll be hell to pay for you, too. Won’t always be this hospital to protect her. Or you, either. If you know something I should know, you best spill it.”

  I stopped and stared directly into his eyes. “Look, Mr. Byrnes,” I said, “I’m a lot more afraid of Sarah Byrnes not talking than I am of what you might do. If she was talking to me, the whole world would know it.” My heart pounded lie! so hard I thought he would hear it, but he looked hard at my eyes and said, “Okay.” God, he’s scary.

  Sarah Byrnes’s room isn’t off limits, so I had no trouble planting the notebook between the mattress and the box spring when Mr. Byrnes was talking at the nurse. But Mr. Byrnes was there when I went back to get it two days later, so I had to wait. Sarah Byrnes and I walked the courtyard again under his ever-present glare. The weather was springlike, though that kind of weather never lasts long in February, and I carried my coat over my arm. “Did you write in the book?”

  Once.

  We walked in long, slow circles with me babbling about Lemry’s class, Ellerby and Brittain, Carver and the way he stood up to my mother, whatever I could think of to wear down Mr. Byrnes’s patience. But he stood at the landing atop the stairs, waiting like some bird of prey.

  Then I told her about Jody, and to my surprise, I told her all about Jody. I told her how good I felt to be with her and to have her want to spend time with me. Before I knew it I was talking about the abortion. I had promised, but there I was, and I didn’t think to try to stop myself until it was over. Tears ran down Sarah Byrnes’s cheeks. I had never seen that before, and I remember thinking absently how they meandered along the scarred crevices of her face rather than in a straight line like they would on a smooth one. I didn’t know why she was crying, but I stopped and I stood looking at her, and then I hugged her. She didn’t hug me back, but I felt her relax a bit and fall gently against me, and more tears came. When the tears dried I took her back up the steps. Passing Mr. Byrnes I said, “Nothing,” but it’s a pretty safe bet he didn’t believe me.

  Old man Byrnes’s radar was working overtime, and he bird-dogged me every step so I didn’t dare go into her room for the notebook. I had to come back late the next day. Sarah Byrnes was sitting through a group therapy session, so I just told the nurse I had left a notebook with my homework in her room. These people really do treat me like I work here.

  Dear Eric,

  They’ve been telling me—in case I’m listening—to write things down ever since I got here, and now they would be satisfied, except they won’t know, because if you show this to anybody I’ll rip out your intestines and strangle you with them. I have never trusted anyone completely, not even you, and I don’t know if I do yet. I’ll find out by whether or not I give you this or just rip it up. Here goes.

  I can’t ever go home again. My dad is getting crazier, and like I said the other day, there’s nothing too mean for him to do if he thinks he needs to. Eric, just believe that and don’t get stupid and try to call the Child Protection people or the cops. They can only help after something’s happened, and the threats they make don’t mean anything to my dad.

  I came here because I thought I was going to kill myself, and even though it seemed like a good idea, I was afraid. I needed someplace safe to decide if I could or should do it. I considered running away, but I might as well just admit it, I’m so ugly that even if I do get away from him, my life will always be like this. There’s no running from what he did. For a long time I thought the trick was to make myself as mean as he was. That’s what Crispy Pork Rinds was all about. I wanted to be as mean as I could to all the people who had been mean to me, and I needed my dad then, because being around him kept me feeling that way.

  But then I got up here and things changed. They care about you here, and I’ve seen some kids that have a lot more wrong with them than I have except you can’t see it. There’s a boy here who was shut up in his closet when he was three years old with his puppy that his stepdad killed. He was there for at least a day but probably it was longer. And there’s a girl who watched her dad kick her little brother to death from a place under the stairs where he couldn’t see her, and she still hates herself for not stopping him, but she was only six. I was sitting in the group, pretending I’d been beamed up, when she told that story, and all of a sudden she was shrieking and crying and she ran across the circle and hugged me and told me not to give up and that she feels on the inside like I look on the outside, but she couldn’t stand it if I gave up because the ones of us who are scarred have to stick together. I wanted to talk and tell her I would stay and fight, but I couldn’t because if I talk they’ll think I’m better and send me home. It hurts so much inside me I can hardly stand it, and I’ve thought more about killing myself, but I know I won’t. I feel worse for their lives than I do for my own, except I wish I could hide my scars on the inside like them. I just want to be able to keep mine a secret some of the time.

  I’m writing this because I don’t have to give it to you. Anyway, ever since that girl hugged me, I know I’m not the only one in the world who hurts, or even the person who hurts the worst. If the ones who hurt the worst stay, then I can, too.

  I’ve started having these dreams about when my mother was still around. I was pretty, Eric. I was pretty. People said that. In these dreams I see myself that way, and even though I know something was really wrong with my mother, it still feels like love when I remember it. And they aren’t like real dreams, they’re like memories. Our group counselor says they’re important because we can hitch our new lives to them.

  I remember how my mother and I used to hide after my dad beat her up and we’d hold each other in the dark, but I also remember her laughing and playing with me when he was gone. She loved me in her way, Eric. She really did. It’s hard to stay mean when you remember how that feels. I forgot about it until I got here and saw these kids trying to dig out the little bits of love in their lives, and when I saw they could find them, I started to look for mine. I owe these kids a lot. Sometime before I leave I’ll have to talk because I need to tell them they’ve made things better for me. I also need to tell them about my life because it isn’t fair that I know about them and they don’t know about me.

  And I know I have to q
uit remembering my mother as loving me because it hurts too much. There’s only one way she can help me now, and that’s to come back and tell the truth—and put that son of a bitch away.

  The ink color has changed because it’s the next day. It was hard to let you take this. I was relieved yesterday when you didn’t get a chance to get it out of my room. But I can’t let myself chicken out now; I’m out of good choices. And then there’s you. When we were younger I kept you around because you were an easy friend. And it’s only been since I got here, since that girl hugged me, that I figured out if I have a chance it’ll be because I let somebody like me. You saved me, Eric. God, remember when you first turned out for the swim team and you started losing all that weight and got scared I’d think you were leaving me? So you ate like two pigs instead of one? When I found out you were staying fat for me, I went home and cried and cried. Nobody ever did anything like that for me. I cried again the other day when you told me about that Jody girl, and you might as well know it’s because I was afraid you’ll go away from me. I know I’m not pretty anymore, Eric, but I’m a girl under all this mess. I don’t love you or anything—at least not like that—but it makes me afraid. I also cried because you told me she had an abortion and there’ve been so many times in my life I wished that’s what I had been.

  These kids up here, they act like the toughest kids in the world, just like me, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen under that toughness—in anybody else or in me. I’m really scared, because if I’m going to have a life, I’m going to have to act different, and I don’t know if I can.

  So there it is, and by God I’m going to give this to you and you better not give it to anybody else. And one other thing: When I start talking again don’t expect me to act like this letter all the time, because I won’t.

  “I need to talk to you off the record,” I said, standing on Lemry’s porch after midnight.

  “You want to stand out here and freeze,” she said, pulling her robe tight, “or would you like to come in?”

  In the light she saw the red rims around my eyes. “Mobe, what’s the matter?”

  “You sure we won’t bother your husband?”

  She smiled. “My husband goes to work out at five in the morning. He does not wake up for midnight callers. Now what’s the matter?”

  I burst into tears.

  Lemry put her hand on my back, and guided me to the couch. “Sit. Tell me what’s the matter.”

  “God, I think my heart is going to break.”

  “Is this about Jody?”

  I shook my head. “That would be easy.”

  “Tell me.”

  “It has to be off the record.”

  “I’ll promise if it’s at all possible I’ll keep it to myself, Mobe, but if it requires outside help, I always have to consider that.”

  I watched her carefully.

  “You’ll just have to take a chance.”

  It boiled down to this: Somebody a whole lot smarter than me and Sarah Byrnes needs to help keep her old man off her and get a start on the life she got a glimpse of writing that letter. If I didn’t do something, Sarah Byrnes would either get dragged back home by her dad, or she’d run away and be alone. The letter was clear: shaky as I was, I was her only friend. I’d rather have her hate my guts and be safe than love me and be alone.

  I handed Lemry the letter.

  She read it and tears rolled out of her eyes like big sad pearls, and I knew she’d do the right thing because she felt just like me. She read it again and said, “She’s right, Mobe. Her mother’s the only person who can set this straight. We better find her.”

  CHAPTER 12

  “Man,” Ellerby says, pausing for the cross-traffic before taking a right on the red onto Compton Street at the edge of the Edison district, “I must be getting the kind of faith my dad talks about, bringing my holy-mobile down here again.” He pauses. “Lemme guess. We’re not here bringing the word and the light to Dale Thornton.”

  “That’s why I hang out with you, Ellerby. You’re like a genius or something.”

  “So what is it we’re bringing?”

  “Questions.”

  “Make them easy ones, okay? I’d hate to see that guy get pissed.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  Ellerby pulls the Cruiser up against the cracked and broken sidewalk at the edge of the vacant lot across the street from Thornton’s house, and I gaze across the icy street toward the driveway leading back to Dale’s shop. The balance has obviously shifted between Dale and me since junior high, if only because I’m bigger now and not as afraid of my shadow as I once was. But I’m like Ellerby; Dale Thornton is still not a guy I want on my bad side. He has the same nothing-to-lose look, and I’ll never be comfortable around that. But he’s the only person to answer these questions.

  “Wait here. I see his car. I should just be a minute.”

  Ellerby leans back into his customized bucket seat as I step out. “What if he kills you?”

  “If you’re sure I’m dead, drive away.”

  The door to Dale’s shop stands ajar, and I hear the clanging of metal on metal as I approach. I knock twice before pushing my way in, still unseen by Dale, who appears to be hammering on a stuck bolt. He looks up, then back to what he’s doing. When the bolt breaks loose, he straightens up and nods. “Fat Boy,” he says. “What’s up?”

  “Hey, Dale,” I say uneasily. “Need to ask you some questions.”

  “You with the cops?”

  I laugh. “They’re not that kind of questions.”

  He watches me.

  “So,” I say, “what do you think?”

  “Is that the first question?”

  “No. I’m just trying not to be pushy.”

  Dale wipes his hands with the ever-present grease rag and leans against the back of the station wagon. “This is about Scarface, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  He replaces the grease rag. “I promised a long time ago I wouldn’t talk about her. I already said too much. I ain’t got much, but my word’s good.”

  “She told me about the stove. You don’t need to worry about having spilled the beans on that anymore.”

  Dale stared suspiciously. He’d obviously had second thoughts about breaking his word. “You know,” he warned, “you do-gooders need to be careful. You think just ’cause you want to help somebody, somebody’s gonna be helped.”

  “I’m not asking you to let any more secrets out, Dale. Honest, Sarah Byrnes told me. I came to ask if she ever said anything about her mother. Like about where she thought she went, or anything like that.”

  “Whaddaya want with her old lady?”

  I say, “I’m not sure, but Sarah Byrnes says her dad is getting crazier and crazier, like when he burned her. Said she thinks he’s getting ready to do something bad. Her mother is the only one who could blow the whistle.”

  “I thought Scarface wasn’t talking. You said she was holed up at the crazy house, keepin’ her mouth shut.”

  “She’s still holed up there, but she’s talkin’ some. At least to me.”

  “She’s crafty, that Scarface. Bet there never was nothin’ wrong with her. Bet she coulda talked all along.”

  You don’t get ahead of Dale Thornton when it comes to survival. “I’ll bet you’re right. So what about it? Ever hear her say anything about her mom?”

  “Just that she hightailed it after her daddy burned her. Scarface never heard nothin’ from her again. Said for a while she was scared her old man maybe killed her.”

  “Did she say where she might have gone if he didn’t kill her?”

  He sits back. “Only place like that woulda been Reno.”

  “Reno, Nevada?”

  “They got a Reno somewhere else?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Then Reno, Nevada. Jesus, how come everybody said you was so smart, Fat Boy?”

  “I had ’em fooled. They don’t say that anymore.”

  “I ain’
t surprised.”

  “Why Reno? What did Sarah Byrnes ever say about Reno?”

  “Said her momma always wanted to be a singer or a dancer or some shit like these chicks she seen in Reno once, up on the stage at some gamblin’ place. Her mom told her that’s what she woulda done if she wouldn’t of married her old man. Scarface told me once her mom used to talk about it all the time, like it was some kind of possession or somethin’.”

  “Obsession.”

  “Yeah, that.”

  “Did it sound like something she’d really do?”

  “Whaddaya mean?”

  “Well, was it like me wanting to grow up to be a stand-up comic, or was it something she’d really do?”

  Dale shakes his head. “How the hell would I know? I never met her mom. She only talked about her once or twice. I don’t know why she’d wanna be around her old lady anyway. Hell, she up an’ left, right? Scarface’d been better off like me, no mom at all. I’d rather have nobody than somebody who’d do me like that.”

  Dale has a point. “Look,” he says, walking back toward the workbench, “I’m done with this here courtroom drama. Come over here an’ hold this piece so I can rethread it.”

  Mautz flagged me down in the hall between fourth period and lunch today, and I swear it felt just like junior high, only this time I was innocent. “Mr. Calhoune, could I talk to you for a minute?”

  What am I gonna say, no? I crammed my books into my locker and walked over to him. I’ve grown, but he’s still a monster. “Yes sir.”

  “Thought we might have lunch,” he said. “Down in my office.”

  “What’d I do?”

  He smiled. “Nothing. I want to talk something over with you.”

  I glanced over at Jody standing next to her locker. “I was going to eat with…”

  “Come on, lover boy. One lunch away from her won’t hurt you.”

  This was unwinnable. “Okay, I’ll meet you there.” I walked over to Jody. “Gonna have to stand you up.”

  “Lunching with the king?” She’d overheard.